Tim McGarry: Sir Jeffrey and I have much in common — and we both got into trouble for Team GB tweets

Glasgow Rangers now can’t win a football match; Eighteen year-olds are failure if they don’t get ten A stars at A level; thanks to Brexit mobile phone roaming charges are back*; and despite being its patron, Prince Andrew won’t be playing a round of golf at Royal Portrush any time soon.

(* excludes people from Northern Ireland travelling to the rest of Ireland. Thanks NI Protocol!!)

It’s been such a strange week even Sammy Wilson is likely to admit that climate change is real.

My favourite story of the week was the anti-vaxxers protesting about the BBC who stormed a building which the BBC had left about eight years ago.

This is simultaneously hilarious and depressing. I presume our local anti-vaxxers are currently protesting about the BBC outside Havelock House with placards demanding the return of Romper Room.

But the strangest discovery I have made recently is that Sir Jeffrey Donaldson and I have a lot in common.

We are disturbingly close in age. (No need to Google it. I am younger).

We both thought Edwin Poots was a ridiculous leader of the DUP.

And this week we both got in to minor political trouble for tweets about the Olympics.

Some people say you should keep politics out of sport. But it is impossible to keep politics out of sport.

Separating politics from sport is like separating hops from Guinness, lust from Love island and Ant from Dec.

I posted a tweet saying that after watching two weeks of the BBC’s Olympic coverage I didn’t realise there were other countries apart from Team GB taking part in the games.

Frankly the joke wasn’t well phrased and it’s not one that you will hear repeated in my live gigs on the grounds that it wasn’t funny.

These things happen.

Not all attempted jokes work. But Twitter is relentlessly unforgiving.

Even when a joke is brilliant and works there’ll always be someone on Twitter who hates it and is willing to share their hatred with you.

But an online joke that falls flat is there to be parsed analysed and critiqued ... forever.

Deleting it is a sign of weakness and letting it stay there allows it to be played with by people who don’t like you the way a cat plays with an injured bird.

People thought I was insulting Team GB and therefore insulting Britain and therefore insulting Northern Ireland and therefore insulting unionists and therefore I may as well have joined the Provos.

Jeffrey had problems from the opposite side.

He tweeted “Congratulations to Team GB and NI on a fantastic Olympics. You’ve done our nation proud” alongside an image of all the medals won by team GB.

This seems fairly innocuous. But not on Twitter. Immediately after he tweeted, Jeffrey was told that it was just “Team GB” not “Team GB and NI” and therefore NI had been forgotten, and therefore the Brits don’t care about us and therefore unionists are stupid for wanting to be British and therefore we need a border poll now!

In fact Jeffrey was correct. Team GB does include NI. Team GB is merely the brand name for Team GB and Northern Ireland.

The British Olympic Association is actually called the national Olympic Committee for GB and Northern Ireland the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands and the UK Overseas Territories including the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar.

Let’s be honest, even the most ardent republican would admit that this is a bit of mouthful.

Team GBNIIOMCIandUKOTincFIandGIB is not exactly catchy.

The logo would require far bigger shirts for the beach volleyball teams.

So for the avoidance of doubt let me put on the record my congratulations to all the athletes from Team GB and Team Ireland. And I want readers to know that I have learnt a very important lesson from these games — if your six-year-old child asks for a skateboard for Christmas, for God’s sake get them one.

Please give generously to my Fund Dave website

I’m starting a GoFundMe page for David Cameron.

The poor man is clearly in need of a few quid.

Obviously it is nigh on impossible to live on the pathetic pittance that is an ex-Prime Minister’s pension.

And Dave pocketed a derisory £800,000 advance for his autobiography ‘For the Record’. (Incidentally, for the record, For the Record was £25 but is now available online for £3.49.)

He’s an ex-PM so he surely deserves to be paid as much as Lionel Messi.

It’s no wonder that Mr Cameron looked around for a wee part-time job to top up his meagre income. Luckily he was mates with Lex Greensill

I love the name Lex Greensill. It sounds like a great name for a Bond villain. And every Bond villain needs an Oddjob. So David “call me Dave” Cameron became Lex’s Oddjob. Oddjob’s job was to exploit his contacts list and try to get Lex a government hand out. Call it Quantum of Subsidy. (Note — News Letter lawyers, you should probably double check this as Dave may be so desperate for money he could sue).

And for his sterling efforts on Lex’s behalf Dave earned himself a mere $10 million or £7.2million.

Yes, the man who brought us all austerity only got a paltry £7.2 million for his part-time job. The poor man.

So please give generously to my Fund Dave website – just google FU DAVE.

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